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My Favourite Secondary Characters

It’s time to highlight some perhaps often less focused on characters, the supporting cast! Actually, quite often my favourites aren’t the main characters, but the people helping them. While compiling this list, I noticed that the majority of the characters were men, and while I would love to add other characters to the list, these are the ones who have stuck with me. If you have any suggestions of books with great women (and other) characters, let me know in the comments!

Maija’s Top 10 favourite secondary characters

1. The FoolFrom the Farseer and the Tawny Man trilogies (among others), by Robin Hobb

I love the Fool. The Fool is awesome. One of my favourite characters in anything, ever. I can’t describe the Fool properly, so I will not even try. Mysterious, witty, loyal, intelligent.Image is by John Howe, from the cover of Fool’s Errand.

Oh, tricksters. How I love thee! The Marquis is, to me, the highlight of the book. He’s always up to something; he is cunning, dangerous & self-serving, but can also be heroic.Image is from the Neverwhere TV series.

My favourite professors tend to be werewolves. Or my favourite werewolves tend to be professors. Either way, the Beta of the Woolsey pack, Randolph Lyall, is my favourite character in the series. I like those reserved, competent types.Image is from the manga version of the series.

The main character Courtney’s uncle, Aloysius is a powerful warlock, and another certified badass on this list. I like his relationship with Courtney a lot. While he does at times rush in to save her, I love how adults aren’t pictured as infallible in this series.Image is from the creator Ted Naifeh’s website.

Lord Akeldama dresses to kill, uses endearments like “my little sugarplum”, and knows everything that goes on in the city through his spy network of dandies. This also makes him one of my Top 3 Vampires.Image is from the manga version of the series.

Oh, look, it’s another werewolf professor! Lupin is my favourite character from the Harry Potter series, hands down. I love how his reserved nature serves as a counterpoint to his loss of control as a werewolf. Plus he’s just adorable, and a wonderful person.Image is Wolfsbane, by Linnpuzzle over at Deviantart.

Yes, yes, I realize this is getting ridiculous, but the main reason I like the Parasol Protectorate series is because of its characters. Madame Lefoux dresses like a man, owns a hat shop (and makes the hats), and is an awesome scientist and engineer. She has a hidden chamber for science stuff under her hat shop!Image is from the manga version of the series.

The second character from the Dresden Files series to make this list. Thomas is a vampire who feeds on human emotions. Whether he is self-assured or full of self-doubt, in full-on vampire mode, or trying to live among the humans, I always find him fascinating.

There are a lot of great secondary characters in The Sandman, but Lucien made it to this list. It might have something to do with the fact that he is a librarian…. also his thin, tall frame just pulls me in. I’d love to spend some time with Lucien, going through his library (which contains every book that anyone ever dreamed of writing).Image is from the Sandman graphic novels.

So, those were my choices. Do we share some favourites? What did you choose as your Top 10 Tuesday topic this week?

Yeah! :D But the three I chose really do stand out from the others to me, and the characters that are left can’t compete with all the people from other books in this list.

I could also have a completely A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones themed list. That series has so many characters, too. The only reason none of them appeared on this list is that my favourites do have point of view chapters, so I can’t really count them as secondary characters.

Oh my gosh, I have the biggest crush on Thomas Raith! (I mean, who doesn’t??) I really adore all the characters you’ve mentioned from Dresden, Potter, & the Parasol Protectorate. Karrin Murphy does not get enough applause, in my opinion — she rocks! What a great list. :)